Acorn winners 2017: Benjamin Veale

Reservations manager, the Ritz London

Nominated by

Proudest moment "This must be split between being offered a graduate management position at the Ritz, receiving news that my application for a scholarship from the Master Innholders was accepted, studying at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, and joining the St Julian Scholars."

Greatest inspiration "David Broadhead, my mentor from the Savoy Society mentoring scheme. We have remained friends ever since and speak at least once a month. He was my guidance through university, my professional placement year and my career since."

Ambition "I would like to continue a career with rooms division and, in the medium to long term, progress into a rooms division manager and on to hotel manager."

Having graduated from the University of Surrey with a first-class honours degree in international hospitality management, Benjamin Veale joined the Ritz as a rooms division management trainee, and spent 18 months working in front office, reservations and housekeeping.

In 2013, he was promoted to assistant (duty) manager for the hotel in the absence of the general manager. Two years later he became assistant reservations manager and then, just three months later, reservations manager. Today he manages rooms reservations revenue of £21.5m, which represents 5% growth on the previous year, along with an increase of 6% in the average daily rate.

Over the past year, he has achieved a leading quality assurance score of 96.7%, sold and hosted eight unique experiential residential packages, generating £258,000 in revenue, conducted two hotel-wide training sessions on complaint handling with a 90% positive feedback score, and managed three online restaurant promotions, resulting in a year-on-year increase of 3,565 covers in the Ritz's Michelin-starred restaurant.